‘Soul’s Child’ wins YWO Book of the Year award!

My daughter flew in from Melbourne yesterday and for the second time this year I went out on the town. We ended up at Karaoke (we sang a duet of ‘Jolene’ :D) and were having a great time when I got an email on my new Samsung Galaxy S3. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and all I could see was the word ‘Congratulations’ at the top of the email. I handed the phone to my daughter and asked her to read it. She squealed and said, ‘Congratulations, you have won the YWO Book of the Year award.’ Then I squealed and we pushed some buttons and before we could squeal any more the email was accidently deleted.

Okay – so this is a new phone and neither of us could figure out how to get the email back. We passed the phone around the table and no one has a Galaxy S3 so no one knew how to retrieve it.

Then I found Tim. Tim works at the ABC and writes a sports blog. He fiddled with his phone for a moment then handed it to me and asked me to enter my email address. I did this and in an instant the email magically reappeared.

As you’ve probably already guessed I’m not a technical person.

To Tim wherever you are – you are a star and a complete and utter gentleman!

You Write On (YWO)

YWO is an international site where writers can upload excerpts from their books or short stories for review by other writers. They conduct the Next Big Author competition with Random House, Orion, Penguin, Harper Collins and Little Brown publishers. Every year they receive hundreds of thousands of stories. Every second or third month the top three rated stories for that month are given a free review by one of the publishing houses mentioned above. Once a year they pick the top five stories (from the previous 12 months) from adult fiction (this also includes YA) and the top five stories from Children’s fiction – and these stories are the winners of the YWO Book of the Year award.

This is what the email was trying to tell me. I had won the Book of the Year Award for my story Soul’s Child!

*that popping sound in the background may be champagne corks!*

I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled and honoured I am. I think the word I’m looking for is ‘speechless’ – and maybe a little misty.

Thanks, Rick. It was like a shot out of the blue. I had no idea I was even in the running for it. There are so many fantastic stories on that site. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. I’m pinching myself and wondering what this all means 🙂

I’ve got two stories up there. Soul’s Child and The Eleventh Question. When I lost the email I didn’t know which story they were talking about! 🙂

I was in a bit of a panic, John. I’ve deleted emails on the phone before and not known hot to get them back (there is no ‘trash’ folder that I can find on the Galaxy S3). I know you’re looking at buying one, so maybe you can give me a few tips if you do! Usually when I accidently ‘delete’, its not an important email like this.

The ABC guy was great. I’m going to find his blog and post a link here at some stage as a ‘thank you’ to him 😀

I so agree with that sentiment. The only reason I write is because I can’t not write (bad grammar, I know). I really only put my story up there to get feedback from other writers. It’s a hard road because other writers pick every single mistake they can find and you really need a tough skin. But in the end it’s worth it because they don’t know you and they pull no punches in their reviews. This is really helps develop the story and find holes that you hadn’t seen before.

The award is something I never expected – but it certainly is a lovely surprise

Don’t know yet. I’ve already published this book (but the award also relates to publication and marketing of any future books I may want to publish as well and that’s very nice indeed). Even if the major houses don’t come to the party it doesn’t matter because I’ve already got the most important thing I need from the award – publicity and marketing 😀

Well congratulations. For some reason your posts don’t show up in my reader. I had to go looking for you. Well you should celebrate a bit-then back to the keyboard. While I’m at it, about personal space–mine is my house, so you can tell I’m very sought out by others. I very happy for you. KB

I hate leaving it. I’m not agrophobic-though I don’t mix well with people-but having people over is mind numbing. I roam around looking for a place to be comfortable and end up using the bathroom alot just to be alone. Forget going to other people’s houses. Holiday get together’s are a nightmare incarnate. KB

Great news and I’m delighted for you Dianne. I’ll catch up with that book in due course but for now I’m enjoying LSGL – I’m agog with some of the original descriptive work in the early chapters – might pinch the odd simile or two, mwah ha ha. Please add my congratulations to the rest.

Thank you, Roy. When I first wrote LSGL the editor I had at the time said,’ just get to the bloody point and stop all this discriptive stuff in the beginning!’ I took a lot of it out (that was when I was young and naive and should have just told her to butt out) 😀

Oh wow!! That is so wonderful!! I am so excited for you *does happy dance from across the world* Well, now I know which book of yours to try next 🙂
I love the story about it though, you had me cracking up! Congratulations

I’m late to the party – stupid time zones. Congratulations on your win! What exciting news, and an incredibly large number of contestants to be selected from. What a great way to gain more recognition.

I did the same thing with some important e-mail on my iPhone, once. It was somewhat my fault – there was an indecipherable button in the mail application that I wanted to see what it did (and heaven forbid Apple include any kind of guide to what their program features are, because everything’s just ~so intuitive~), and it ended up permanently deleting the message. If you’re going to put a super-delete button all front-and-forward on a program, at least make it something iconically recognizable, like a red X or trash can!

Oh Dianne! I couldn’t be happier for you! And I love the story of sending your phone around the bar! And a guy from ABC retrieved it! Bless his soul. What a fantastic, huge honor and now, of course, I’m going to go buy a copy of Souls Child!! And drink a glass of the bubbly for moi Diane and super congrats!! YAY!! 😀

I intended to write here and congratulate you when I heard about this weeks ago, but I completely forgot till just now. 😀 Well done, you – I was really glad to hear about it. I hope you’re still on a high, and still drinking the champagne!